


untitled

by withoutaplease



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Ficlet, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 13:42:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20601743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withoutaplease/pseuds/withoutaplease
Summary: No one expected Billy to live beyond Starcourt less than Billy himself . . .





	untitled

No one expected Billy to live beyond Starcourt less than Billy himself, so you can imagine his surprise when he woke up under harsh fluorescents, surrounded by hazmat suits, in traction.

He screamed.

He screamed and screamed and kept screaming until one of the suits ran over with a syringe to keep him from shredding his freshly reassembled insides.

He was mostly out after that, but every so often (days? months?) he’d hear men in the room speaking in hushed voices about _the subject_ and _miraculous recovery_ and _unnatural abilities_ before sinking back down into a gray haze.

Gray, not black. Alone.

One day he opened his eyes properly, and the casts and pulleys and suits were gone. It looked like a regular hospital room, if a little nicer than he was used to. It briefly occurred to him to wonder who was paying for it. His mouth tasted like the crud at the bottom of a barbecue, and he shouted for water. He tried, anyway. It was more of a croak, and it felt like swallowing sandpaper. Still, when the nurse came running, he winked at her.

It was another couple weeks before he made it all the way to the bathroom, but whatever joy he took in pissing without an audience dried up when he caught a look at himself in the mirror. He could count his ribs beneath the furious red scars that covered his chest, his cheeks were hollow, and his hair hung in thin clumps. He slammed a fist against the glass. It barely shook.

The white coats came and went, shining penlights in his eyes, asking bored questions about eating and shitting, and taking endless vials of blood. They wouldn’t tell him what hospital he was at, or where his family was, or why the security guards were armed with semi-automatics, so he didn’t tell them what he remembered about Starcourt.

At least, until the one calling himself Owens showed up, and told Billy he knew it wasn’t his fault. Told him he was remarkable. Told him he was destined for great things, if he could just have a little patience. Told him the kids were okay. 

He cried.

After that, he kept his mouth shut and did his work in rehab, but he watched, too. He learned how to walk up three steps and back down again, and what time the security guards switched shifts. He learned the location of every gun, every phone, every poorly monitored supply closet, and he waited.

The night the alarms went off, he was ready. It was easy, in the end. The guards were all shouting and running for the stairwells, and nobody noticed the skinny guy in the gown dashing from doorway to doorway. When he reached the caged desk at the locked ward gate, there was only one person inside. A nurse, softly weeping, and cowering on the floor. He smiled, and winked at her again. “Let’s get out of here, sweetheart,” he said.

She drove them away from the facility, toward city lights, and helicopters flew the way they came. Back at her apartment, she dressed him in her ex-husband’s way-too-large clothes and gave him the most delicious beer he had ever, or would ever, drink. Later on she offered him the bed, but for once, he wasn’t tempted. He took the couch, and slipped out when he heard her soft snoring.

He stepped out into the night, half the man he was but somehow twice him, too. Powerful, somehow. He had a sister to protect, and he was done taking shit from anybody. He started walking.


End file.
